The Mission of U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants: To address the needs and rights of persons in forced or voluntary migration worldwide by advancing fair and humane public policy, facilitating and providing direct professional services, and promoting the full participation of migrants in community life. (About USCRI).
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About Refugees /End Warehousing /NGOs Draft Rights-based Conclusion on Self-Reliance: Ask Your Government to Support it! A number of NGOs from refugee hosting and donor nations have drafted a rights-based Conclusion on Self-Reliance with equitable international responsibility sharing for consideration at the 2009 session of UNHCR’s Executive Committee.
This is the product of extensive discussions over the past few years (see below) and is the successor to the USCRI-RCK draft put forward earlier. It affirms that the rights of refugees to work and freedom of movement are core elements of protection, valid whether any particular durable solution is available or not; that granting these rights does not obligate host countries to naturalize refugees; and that donor countries should shift their aid from wasteful, segregated programs to integrative models that support host countries helping refugees along with their own populations.
USCRI’s President and CEO Lavinia Limón sent a letter September 16, 2008 to the U.S. Department of State encouraging them to consider the draft and to share it with their fellow ExCom members at upcoming meetings in Geneva. If you would like to send a similar letter to influential members of UNHCR’s Executive Committee, here’s one you can modify that we will deliver for you.
To check out what folks said about warehousing at ExCom 2008 and the protection Standing Committee meeting in June, go to UN Docs and Exchanges.
Resettling Refugees in America:
Each year Americans welcome refugees to the U.S. Whether they come from Tibet, Sudan, Iraq, Burma, Congo or another part of the world, all refugees share a similar journey.
Refugees, differ from other immigrants, in that they do not have the choice to remain in their home country. Refugees flee their country to save their life. They run from war and persecution, often loosing beloved family members along the way.
Many refugees then spend years and sometimes decades in substandard refugee camps. Less than 1% of all refugees get the chance to leave a camp and resettle in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia or other country that resettles refugees.
When a refugee arrives in America, he or she usually comes with nothing more than the clothes on their back. A group like USCRI meets the refugee at the airport and helps him or her begin the process of building a new life in America.
USCRI’s Resettlement Network is dispersed across the U.S. from Miami to Boise with programs in large cities like New York and Los Angeles and small towns like Bowling Green, Kentucky and Erie, Pennsylvania.
The USCRI Network develops and implements a variety of programs to help refugees become contributing members of our society, gain their freedom, and pursue happiness in America.
Our programs focus in three areas: … (full text Resettling).